Brazil to deploy more troops in violence-hit countries

Feb.10, Brasilia: Brazil to deploy more troops, armoured vehicles and military aviation to a southeastern state to fill a security vacuum where the police force has been on strike for a week, the Brazilian army has said.

The Brazilian army has announced that a wave of violence and crime in Espirito Santo has claimed more than 100 lives so far, which is a major rise from the four murders recorded in all of January.

The announcement on Thursday came a day after Cesar Colnago, the state governor, said that the 1,200 soldiers who arrived earlier this week were not enough to help end the rampant unrest, which started after police left their posts on Friday in protest over wages and work conditions, reports said.

Brazil's Globo television network quoted the police union in Espirito Santo saying that more than 100 people have now been killed in a wave of muggings, carjackings and looting in the capital city Vitoria and elsewhere.

Relatives and sympathisers of striking officers are blockading police stations, and officers inside are deliberately making no effort to come out - leaving the city unguarded.